Wake Up
by Sarah1281
Summary: Mal lives for the day when her husband will realize the truth and come back to her.


Wake Up

Disclaimer: I do not own Inception.

It's been nearly six months since I last committed suicide. Yes, that's right. Committed not attempted. I've done it time and time again trying to find a way out and I believe that I have found it. Dom…he's not so lucky. He's kept me waiting these past few months, lonelier than the time he kept me waiting before.

We were pioneers, Dom and I, and that's what started this hell. We experimented with dreams and with extraction. We had ideas and they said that they couldn't be done but we did it anyway. We kept pushing the envelope, faster and more intense until one day…we just stopped. We got stuck, you see, in limbo. We went too far in and dying didn't wake us but send us into a completely new world.

All we had to do to free ourselves from this 'limbo' was to die, I know that now, but back then…if dying while we were too far under had been what had sent us there then who knew what dying in limbo would do? We were afraid to try. We wanted another way out and we spent so long looking for it as we explored and created in our new world. Eventually, we gave up. Or, should I say, _I_ gave up. There was no way out that I could see and the days turned to weeks turned to months turned to years…I couldn't stand to be trapped in a dream but there was no way out. I did what I had to do to maintain some semblance of sanity. I locked away my memories of the real world and tried my best to embrace the illusion.

Dom never gave up. He's the kind of person who can't bring himself to do that even when it's the only way he'll ever be happy. It's part of why I fell in love with him, it's part of what saved us, it's part of what's trapping him now. I was…content, I suppose you could say with my new reality. More time passed although keeping track of it wasn't much of a priority. I know that Dom worried about me and my refusal to face the truth that my world was an illusion. He never stopped pushing the issues and over time I found myself unable to hide from the truth any longer.

I cried when I fully accepted the truth like I'd never cried before. I knew what was real now – or rather what wasn't – but what could I possibly do with this knowledge? Nothing had changed, we were still trapped, and now my one defense mechanism was gone.

"_Don't worry," _Dom had said. _"I have a plan."_

Of course he did, he always did. He was so full of plans and ideas…it had been what had gotten us here in the first place so it seemed only fitting that that would be what got us out. He led me down to a railroad track. I didn't ask him why. I didn't have to.

He told me that death was the only way to free us. He didn't know if it would take us back to reality or just to another place but we'd been quite thorough and there was no other way out of our limbo. I have never been so terrified as when I lay down, clutching Dom's hand for support as I waited for the train to come. I could hear it in the distance getting closer, closer. I couldn't see it, though, so I had to wait in suspense for it to hit me. I've never liked trains, I don't think, but especially not since then.

Against all odds, Dom was right, though. We were dead and then we weren't. We were alive and we were back in our bodies, as young as when we started. Or so I thought.

I tried to get back into my old life but I had difficulty adjusting, as did Dom which really wasn't surprising when you consider that it had been fifty years or so since we had left and yet no time at all. Still, time passed and while Dom seemed to settle back into our old life I never could. I couldn't shake the ever-present feeling that something was wrong. It took me ages to admit it to myself but I couldn't hide from the truth any better now than when I had tried in limbo.

This world, the world that was so familiar to Dom and I, this world that we were happy in…it wasn't real. It seemed so like the real one and yet it wasn't. I said nothing when I first realized this because it was a terrifying prospect. We were in a different dream world and I didn't know if we'd gone down or up levels from limbo. Killing ourselves once hadn't worked. Would doing it again bring us closer to freedom or trap us further? And still, Dom didn't seem to notice. But that was impossible. He had always noticed and had never stopped trying to get me to hear the ugly truth back in limbo. He had to see it.

Soon, I couldn't keep my horrible realization to myself anymore. My suicide had been the most terrifying event of my life and yet it had at least taken me someplace new. I often found my eyes lingering just a bit too long on the sharp kitchen knife I used to make dinner. I felt like I was in this alone but I really wasn't. Our children might have just been projections but my husband wasn't. Dom could help me.

Except he didn't. I blurted out my realization one night and his hand grew cold in mine. His eyes looked haunted and his face pale. He didn't believe me. He thought I was handling what happened in limbo poorly. I can't really deny that that was the case and yet I knew that I was right. I was still dreaming and so was he.

This time, he was the one that couldn't face the truth. I knew that if I did nothing, if I just waited it out that sooner or later we would both die and travel to our next location, perhaps another dream but hopefully reality. I tried to do that, for Dom's sake. I didn't give up this time and I kept trying to convince him of the truth while he looked guilty and tragic like my 'delusions' were all his fault. I suppose in a way they were since he had been the one to urge me on to keep going, deeper than anyone had ever gone before into the realm of dreams. Still, I couldn't blame him. He hadn't forced me to go along with, after all. I made my choice and was just as culpable as he was.

As I said, I tried to humor Dom and I did for awhile but I just…I couldn't keep up the façade. This wasn't real and I couldn't forget that, not again. We were trapped but we didn't have to be. If death had freed us from one dream world then it could free us from another. I was scared but willing to do what I had to. Dom was not.

It was the projections of our children that decided him, I think. Had it just been me he would have followed me to our death, to our salvation. He wouldn't leave them behind, though, said that they needed him more than me. I can't fault him for that. Had the projections been real then it would have been responsible parenting not to commit double-suicide with your unbalanced wife. But the trouble was that they _weren't_ real and he couldn't see that. He didn't want to be forced to choose and so I did the only thing I could do. I removed that choice.

The first thing I did was have myself declared sane. I had myself declared sane three times in case the first time wasn't enough. I couldn't risk him finding a way to fight this. I wrote up all sorts of crazy allegations about how I feared for my life, for my children's lives, about how violent and unpredictable Dom was. It was all blatantly untrue, of course, but why would someone so clearly sane as I was make something like this up? Particularly since there didn't seem to be anything I would gain from a deception.

I waited until our anniversary. It seemed romantic, in a way. I pretended to believe Dom's delusions and he started to think that I had given up. I had, in a way, because I couldn't wait for him to realize the truth on his own anymore. I _would _be free but leaving Dom behind seemed too cruel. If I moved to an upper level or even out of the dream entirely then the time I would spend missing him would be negligible. His time missing me…how could I do that to him?

I had it all planned out. I rented a hotel room and arrived early. I trashed the place to make it look like we had had a huge fight. I had the room in the hotel directly across from the room Dom was going to rented as well. I climbed out the window and sat on the ledge waiting for him. I didn't have to wait long. I didn't see or hear him come in but soon enough he ran to the window and saw me.

He tried to talk me down, of course, like all good husbands of suicidal wives would do. I needed to do this, however, and I was tired of talking. I wasn't done with my leap of fate just yet. I explained to him why he had nothing left in this dream world and how I had set everything up so that he could join me. He didn't believe me. And I was so **tired** of talking. I jumped and waited for him to follow.

He didn't. At least not yet.

I was right, you see. I woke up. It took me weeks of paranoia and watching over the body of my comatose husband before I really believed that I had at last made it to my reality. The last time we lived in a world full of what we expected to find. Was poor, trapped Dom what I expected and that's why I see this? I don't think so. I expected him to follow me so even if he didn't his projection should still be awake. That thought both gives me hope and terrifies me. It's been six months since I returned to the real world and Dom's still not come back. Time passes so much quicker in dreams so who knows how long it's been for him or what's keeping him. Why hasn't he seen the truth yet? If he hasn't – and if he had then he'd be _here_, with me – then he must be suffering greatly and I never wanted that. I wanted him to find the peace the truth would bring him, the peace it brought me.

Life goes on, though. My parents have just been great. They're helping me to believe that one day my husband will wake up, that one day the children will have a father again. Things are changing as much as I try not to let them. James' hair is darkening. Phillipa's eyes are no longer blue. Will Dom even recognize them when he comes back to me? Back to us? Reality is so much better than anything either of us could dream up. Still, there's nothing I can do but wait. Wait, and hope, and _live_.

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